This patent is directed to a casino gaming apparatus, which could be either an individual gaming unit or a casino gaming system having a plurality of gaming units, each gaming unit including multiple display panels made up of a single, subdivided display.
Conventional casino gaming units often included multiple display panels for displaying a variety of images. The gaming unit consisted of three separate display panels: the top glass, the bottom (or “belly”) glass, and the primary display. The top glass and the belly glass were typically static images that provided game instructions, game information, images to attract players to the game, or images otherwise associated with the games that could be played on the gaming unit. The primary display has included active images that may vary as part of a player-attract sequence or as part of the game play. Mechanical moving parts were often used to display a variety of images as part of the game play. For example, in a convention slot machine, the primary display was a “reel glass” having multiple spinning reels with various images on each reel. A front panel was part of the game unit housing and included a control panel. The front panel was sometimes designed to correspond to the game of the gaming unit.